Page 5 of Of Sword & Silver

My mule huffs.

“Of course I have you, too, Mushroom.” I pat his thick neck, his long ears twitching. “And I take much better care of you than that farmer I liberated you from.”

He throws his head in clear agreement, and I make a mental note to give him a treat at my first opportunity.

“Let’s go steal a Sword,” I say, then snort at my own joke.

By the gods. I roll my eyes, watching the stars twinkle in the night sky high above.

Only I would have to steal a man named Sword to beat Death at his own game.

2

THE SWORD

Frigid wind whips through the barred window of my cell.

It’s cold. It’s always fucking cold.

Iron manacles bite at my wrists and ankles, chains clinking against the rings where they’re attached to the ceiling and then the wall. I ignore them, used to the raw pain there. It’s been over ten years, and there are some things about this gods-damned prison that I’ve become inured to.

The cold is not one of them.

It seeps in from Heska’s Northern Sea, so frigid and wet it settles in my very bones.

I grit my teeth, continuing training like my thoughts aren’t blacker than night. As though I have made my peace with this forsaken cell. As if I am repentant for the vengeance I meted out.

I am not.

Those bastards deserved to have their miserable lives cut short.

I don’t mourn them, or my choices.

I mourn the ones they took from me.

My fingers grip the rusting iron tightly and I lift myself up again, crunching my knees to my chest. Flecks of blood-colored rust rain down on my face, my arms screaming with overuse.

I should have been there when it happened. When Sola’s disciples invaded the secret village, when the few Fae that remained were slaughtered.

My bare feet meet the floor and I grunt, curling up again, slowly, so slowly, savoring the pain.

The cries that echo in my memories are so much worse than anything I can inflict on my body.

I was too late. Humid late spring air misted above their broken bodies. I was too late to save any of them. Sola’s followers hunted them down one by one. Their laughter filled the evening when they slaughtered my people, as they bled into the Heskan soil. They hoped it would be enough to incense me, that it would be enough to draw me out. And it did.

Sola’s desire to punish me for wreaking my vengeance on her followers is nothing compared to what I want from her.

So I wait.

And I punish myself, here in my prison cell, the only way I know how, with pain. With training. I keep my body primed and my mind agile, ready for the moment all my planning comes to fruition.

The beam running across the ceiling of my cell creaks under my weight, the screws that anchor the rings straining under the pressure. I press on, up and down, up and down.

These walls have held up Cottleside Prison for centuries. Lojad, god of war and order, would hardly approve of it otherwise. I won’t bring it down, either, especially considering I’m no longer as healthy as I was when I entered ten years ago.

A boom sounds, close enough to catch my attention.

My chains clink as I drop back to the ground.

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